Paris Guided Tours Illuminate The City Of Light
With so many sites of interest and with so much history behind those sites, there are good reasons to take a guided tour of Paris.
You’ll see things you’d otherwise overlook and learning the background to each monument or place of interest will deepen your understanding or appreciation of the city.
Of course, there is an alternative, which is to buy a Paris travel guide and take the book along on walks with you, but a real live person can give you so much more.
Interesting Guided Tours Of Paris
Tastes vary and my idea of interesting places to see Paris may differ from yours, but the following suggestions should help stimulate some ideas:
Ile De La Cite
Ile De La Cite is the oldest part of Paris and, originally, the city was just this one island. As a result, the oldest houses in Paris can be found on the island as well as ancient religious buildings such as Saint Chapelle and Notre Dame.
If you take a walking tour with a guide, you won’t miss a thing. You’ll learn fascinating things like: why there are plaques with saints’ names on them in the square in front of Notre Dame.
Montmartre
As I mentioned elsewhere, for film buffs there is a special Montmartre tour called “In the footsteps of Amelie Poulain”, but for the average “Montmartrist”, there is “the Village of Montmartre” guided trip around Paris most hilly neighborhood.
This walk takes in most of the famous sites in the 18th arrondissement such as Sacre Coeur and Place du Tertre, but will also take you to the last vineyard in Paris, the famous cabaret Au Lapin Agile and the artists studios that were used by the likes of Renoir, Lautrec and Van Gogh. And all this for just 10 Euros.
Paris bike tours with guides
If you like to cycle, there are guides that take people around town on bike. Although these also run during the week, my advice is to go on a Sunday. Thanks to special traffic restrictions on the Sabbath, the Paris roads are “bike friendly” on Sundays. Any other day of the week and you’ll be taking your life into your hands!
How To Find Paris Guided Tours
One of the best places to look is in the weekly Paris “what’s on” guide, “Pariscope”. If you look in the section “promenades” you’ll see a list of tours that are taking place that week. Pariscope has an English language section in the back which lists some tours aimed at English speakers.